The Orange Tarot – XIX The Sun

Orange the colour and orange the fruit – both are happy, healthy and full of vitamin C. The Sun is the last card I have to share with you from the Orange Tarot (for now) and Orangutan Awareness Week is almost over. So, do you feel more aware?

Well, perhaps not, because unless you had oodles of time on your hands and a sudden hankering to do lots of reading, you probably didn’t follow (m)any of the links I posted. Which is totally understandable. So here’s a quick summary – How To Be Orangutan Aware in 3 Easy Steps:

1. Know that orangutans are endangered (Sumatran orangutans are critically endangered) because their rainforest home is steadily being wiped out. 90% has gone already and almost 3 million hectares are lost each year. If things carry on the way they are, wild orangutans will become extinct within a few decades.

2. The main culprits of deforestation are: OIL PALM PLANTATIONS, illegal logging, acacia plantations (for wood pulp), mining and fires. Of these, the most evilest is PALM OIL. Huge swathes of rainforest are cut down and replaced with miles and miles of oil palm monoculture, which is devastating not only to orangutans but all the thousands of species the rainforest supports. Orangutans and the majority of biodiversity supported by tropical rainforests cannot co-exist with oil palm plantations, yet the demand for palm oil is increasing.

3. What we can do:
– buy sustainably source wood and paper products
– campaign for supermarkets and large manufacturers to use sustainably source palm oil (which is found in all sorts of foods such as biscuits, cakes, bread products, as well as soap and various other things – often disguised as ‘vegetable oil’).
– write to MPs, sign petitions and generally kick up a huge fuss about rainforest destruction. Orangutans aren’t the only ones who need trees to survive…

And if you do have oodles of time and a sudden hankering to do lots of reading, this site has amazing info about palm oil and other issues concerning orangutans and does a much better job of explaining things than I do.

Well, that’s me done. Seven cards, seven days and the Phantomwise auction ends at 14:45 GMT on Saturday 13th November (that’s tomorrow). You have been warned…